Share your knowledge on these two classic MPCs
By martel80 Thu Oct 03, 2019 12:44 pm
Just got a SCSI2SD 5.5 for my MPC 3000 and I really love to be able to save all my projects without having to bounce the stems or using 12 disk.

Now, when I received my microSD , it was suposedly formated for my Sampler but it wouldnt recognize it so I formatted it from the MPC 3000 in 26 part of 32MB which is the maximum capacity of the MPC memory anyways.

The good part is that I can simply save a Stereo Bounce in my DAW named by date of Bounce plus the Partition letter and do the same in my MPC 3000 for the .APS and .ALL and assign it to a unique partition .

Now, as I understood, reading a bit here and there, my PC wont read those multiple partitions so my first question is : How can I back up my microSD in my PC if Windows cannot recognize the 26 partitions ? ( I admit it, I havent tried yet )

My second question is: As I only want to use the 26 x 32MB ( (832 MB in total ) , do you guys know any 10 pack of Class 10 MicroSD that goes for cheap. Just anything that is bigger 1 gb mainly. I dont care if its 3/4 empty or like my 16 GB now as 15 gb empty. I just want something reliable class 10 and cheap ( not sure that exist haha ) Hook me up if you know any stash anywhere :)

Last question, How do you guys identify your Micro SD cards ? ...its so small, I cant write anything on it.

Cheers.
User avatar
By JUKE 179r Fri Oct 04, 2019 6:22 am
Answer 1:
I couldn't get Windows OS to identify all 26 partitions so I had to insert it in a Mac to get all 26 partitions.
If you are restricted to only using a Windows PC, I would say to not use the last 2-4 partitions of the Micro SD card then.

Answer 2:
Before i answer this, just remember... you went from previously saving songs on "one" 1.5MB floppy to now a 1GB flash card partitioned to 832MB. That flash card can now hold the equivalent of 554 floppies!
IMO... Save your money and use the one flash card you already have until you fill it up. Then buy "one" more card if needed.

For Micro SD cards, I would definitely say don't go cheap and don't buy no name brands that you never heard of. eBay is flooded with fake counterfeit flash cards that are sh*tty quality.
Do your homework. Buy well known name brand cards and learn how to spot a fake card. Ask the eBay seller questions if you aren't sure or just buy from a reputable computer store or online store. It will cost a bit more but you get a better quality card and a warranty.

Answer 3:
Use paint pens or if you have women in your house, use their nail polish to draw numbers or letters or use different colors to identify the cards.
User avatar
By Nate Kush Fri Feb 19, 2021 8:06 pm
JUKE 179r wrote:Answer 1:
I couldn't get Windows OS to identify all 26 partitions so I had to insert it in a Mac to get all 26 partitions.
If you are restricted to only using a Windows PC, I would say to not use the last 2-4 partitions of the Micro SD card then.

Answer 2:
Before i answer this, just remember... you went from previously saving songs on "one" 1.5MB floppy to now a 1GB flash card partitioned to 832MB. That flash card can now hold the equivalent of 554 floppies!
IMO... Save your money and use the one flash card you already have until you fill it up. Then buy "one" more card if needed.

For Micro SD cards, I would definitely say don't go cheap and don't buy no name brands that you never heard of. eBay is flooded with fake counterfeit flash cards that are sh*tty quality.
Do your homework. Buy well known name brand cards and learn how to spot a fake card. Ask the eBay seller questions if you aren't sure or just buy from a reputable computer store or online store. It will cost a bit more but you get a better quality card and a warranty.

Answer 3:
Use paint pens or if you have women in your house, use their nail polish to draw numbers or letters or use different colors to identify the cards.


I figured it out so that I can have 3 partitions of the SD card that I can see on OSX with no problem for the MPC2K (SCSI ID 1) & Triton (SCSI ID 2) with an additional extra partition (SCSI ID 3). SCSI ID 0 is reserved for the GUID Partition Table so that all of the SD card can be seen on OSX.

Format the SD Card as GUID Partition Table.

sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 SDCARD GPTFormat /dev/disk4

Partition the SD card in Disk Utility:

900MB (the max for MPC2K) as MPC-2000 (MS DOS FAT)
4GB (the max for Triton) as TRITON (MS DOS FAT)
Remainder as EXTRA (Mac OS Journaled)

Figure out what the disk id of the SD card is in Terminal:

diskutil list

Output:

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *7.9 GB disk4
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk4s1
2: Microsoft Basic Data MPC-2000 898.6 MB disk4s6
3: Microsoft Basic Data TRITON 4.0 GB disk4s5
4: Apple_HFS EXTRA 2.6 GB disk4s4

in my case it's disk4. the # corresponds to which GPT partition it is in the next section.

Read the sector starts and sizes of the partitions in Terminal:

sudo gpt -r show disk4

Output:

start size index contents
0 1 PMBR
1 1 Pri GPT header
2 32 Pri GPT table
34 6
40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
409640 2008
411648 1755136 2 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
2166784 2048
2168832 7811072 3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
9979904 262704
10242608 5019048 4 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
15261656 262151
15523807 32 Sec GPT table
15523839 1 Sec GPT header


SCSI2SD UTILITY SETTINGS:

Maintaining the first sector to the EFI on the SD so that the Partition scheme remains the same means setting SCSI ID 0 start sector to 0 and the sector count to 409640.

the 2nd GPT part (MPC-2000) represents SCSI ID 1, and starts at 411648 and has a sector count of 1755136.

the 3rd GPT part (TRITON) represents SCSI ID 2, and starts at 2168832 with a sector count of 7811072.

the 4th GPT part (EXTRA) represents SCSI ID 3, and starts at 10242608 with a sector count of 5019048.

I put these all into the SCSI2SD utility, every ID's device type is set as Removable.

Flash the settings to the SCSI2SD card, then plug it into the MPC2K, plug in the SD card and the power, turn on the MPC and load up the SCSI ID 1 on the Format section in the MPC. Format it as just one (A) partition, making sure not to format SCSI ID 0 or the other ones. Copy the Operating system from the floppy to SCSI ID 1 Partition A, and take that back to the computer. Load the OS 1.72 and all my MPC programs / files and sounds and everything works beautifully.

I think in this manner you can use one SD card to hold files for multiple samplers. not at the same time but possibly with that bigger box that they're selling in places. will try this out with the Triton soon as I haven't hooked it up to the back of that yet but works great for the MPC and having access to the rest of the SD card.